Geddy Lee has been hitting the interview circuit the past couple of weeks in support of his upcoming memoir My Effin' Life and associated spoken word tour, and recently chatted with Matt Cord and Steve Vassalotti of Philly's 102.9 about what fans can expect from both:
... "I'm trying to have a different sort of interviewer every night, every city. So we'll chat for a while and talk about Rush and talk about life. Talk about wine collecting and baseball and whatever comes up. Yeah. I'll read some excerpts from the book. Then I'm going to open it up to the audience because I really love interacting with them and hearing what their questions are. Sometimes you just can't guess what they want to ask." ...
Many fans had been speculating about who the interviewer would be, and whether it would be the same person for all the dates, so Geddy confirms here that each city will have a different interviewer. When asked about whether he and Alex would ever consider going back out on the road as Rush, Geddy gave a long-winded answer, talking a good bit about he and Alex playing at the Taylor Hawkins tribute show last year and their experience with that, and concluded by saying, "I wouldn't say it's impossible - that's the best answer that I can give you.". We'll take it! You can listen to the entire interview below or online at this location.
Ged was also interviewed for NYC radio station Q104.3, and they've been posting a few teaser snippets to Instagram over the last week. In this clip Ged explains how his "hoarding" habit helped him write the book, then in this snippet Geddy talks about the Holocaust chapter of his book, and yesterday they posted this clip where Ged recalls meeting his lifelong friend Alex Lifeson (thanks RushFanForever).
The book is slated for release next month via Harper Collins, and is currently available for pre-order via Amazon and other retailers. As mentioned above, Geddy Lee will be conducting a spoken word In Conversation tour in support of the book starting next month, with the North American leg kicking off Monday, November 13th at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, followed up by another 13 dates across the US and Canada throughout late November and early December. The North American leg ends on December 7th at Massey Hall in Toronto before crossing the pond for the UK tour in Wolverhampton on Sunday, December 10th. You can get all the details and learn how to get tickets at Rush.com.
Back in 2021, author and former fitness writer James Fell interviewed Alex Lifeson for his daily Facebook column On This Day in History, Shit Went Down, to talk about the day when Neil Peart auditioned for and ultimately joined Rush; Geddy Lee's 21st birthday - July 29, 1974. You can read the entire interview on Facebook or on Substack. Then last year, Fell self-published and released a 2-volume book version of his daily column (Volume 1, Volume 2), which included the Alex Lifeson story. The self-published book was a huge success, and ended up selling 50K copies, prompting Penguin Random House to pick it up and re-publish via their Bantam Books imprint with the official release on Tuesday of this past week. The updated book includes both of his self-published volumes, but with a lot of new and updated content (including the Neil Peart joining Rush story for the July 29th entry), and it's now available for purchase via Amazon and other retailers. Fell has the rare honor of having interviewed all 3 members of Rush; he interviewed Neil Peart about his fitness regimen back in 2011, and Geddy four years later for a piece that ran on the day of their final show. You can follow James on Facebook and Twitter, and purchase On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down: Number 2 here.
Stars Insider posted an article titled Rhythms of remembrance: The best songs about World War II this past week, and Rush's Red Sector A was included at #7:
Prog rock pioneers Rush released 'Red Sector A' in 1984. The song was partially inspired by bassist Geddy Lee's mother's experiences of the Holocaust, but was left vague enough that the imagery could be applicable to "any similar prison camp scenario."
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl was interviewed on stage this past Friday at the Austin City Limits Music Festival's Bonus Tracks stage by author, professor and acclaimed mental health specialist Brené Brown. The Austin-American Statesman reported on the event in an article titled 9 things we learned about Dave Grohl at ACL Fest conversation with Brené Brown, including this Rush tidbit:
Air-drummed fills from Rush's 'Tom Sawyer': "I don't know what that song is about," Grohl noted. "But I can air-drum it."
Speaking of Tom Sawyer, The Iron Claw is an upcoming film from A24 which tells the story of the Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. A new trailer for the film was released Wednesday and it prominently features Rush's Tom Sawyer starting around the 50-second mark and continuing throughout. The film will be released on December 22nd, and you can watch the trailer below or on YouTube at this location. The choice of music is fitting, as Kerry Von Erich's nickname was The Modern Day Warrior and he used Tom Sawyer as walk out music.
Rush's Power Windows album will celebrate its 38th anniversary tomorrow, October 14th and to recognize the occasion, we set up a Ranked Choice Voting poll to determine the album's best track. Which of the 8 tracks is your favorite? Rank them all here, and we'll reveal the results next week. That's all for this week. Have a great weekend!!
